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POETS' PARLEYS 




A LITTLE BOOKE 
OF POETS' PARLEYS 

BEING A SET OF CONVERSA- 
TIONS BETWEEN SUNDRY 
PAIRS OF POETS ASSENT- 
ING OR ANON DISSENTING 
IN CONVEYING TO ONE AN- 
OTHER THEIR MINDS ON 
VARIOUS SUBJECTS 
SELECTED & ARRANGED IN 
DIALOGUE FORM BY CHAR- 
LOTTE PORTER AND HELEN 
A. CLARKE & ACCOMPANIED 
WITH DESIGNS BY MARION 
L. PEABODY 

NEW YORK: THOMAS Y. CROWELL 
AND COMPANY, PUBLISHERS, 1903 




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Copyright, 1903, by Thomas Y. Crowell & Company 
Published September, 1903 



THE LIBRARY OF 
CONGRESS, 

Two Copies Received 

SEP 18 1903 

j Copyright Entry 

CUSS CC XX0.N0 

COPY B. 



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Composition and electrotype plates by 
I».,B. Updike; T'fit Merrymount Press, Boston 






"'Tis but brother's speech 

. . . Speech where an accent's change gives each 

The other's soul." 

BROWNING: Sordello. V. 635. 



Thanks are given to Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 
Charles Scribner's Sons, Little, Brown & Co., and the Lit- 
erary Executors of Walt Whitman, for courteous permis- 
sion to reprint here the extracts made from their authors. 







CONTENTS ^ 


ALPHABETICALLY ARRANGED 
AMERICA 


Page 
7 


Lanier and Whitman 




BEAUTY 


39 


Keats and Browning 




DEMOCRACY 


5 


Browning and Shakespeare 




DREAMS 


27 


Rossetti and Coleridge 




EARLY RISING 


29 


Shakespeare and Hood 




EVOLUTION 


6i 


Emerson and Browning 




EVOLUTION OF POETIC ART 


Si 


Emma Lazarus and George Eliot 




FLOWERS 


21 



Spenser and Shakespeare. 

FREEDOM 
Whittier and Lowell 

IMMORTALITY 
Tennyson and Browning 



[vii] 



CONTENTS 


LOVE: "ONE WAY OF LOVE" 
Shakespeare and Browning 


Page 
ii 


LOVE: "ANOTHER WAY OF LOVE" 
Louise Chandler Moulton and Swinburne 


13 


MOTHER-WIT 
Whitman and Burns 


55 


MUSIC 
Shakespeare and Shelley 


4i 


NATURE 
Wordsworth and Bryant 


i7 


PHILOSOPHY 

Milton and Shakespeare 


59 


POETRY 

Shakespeare and Keats 


49 


POETS 

Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning 


47 


ROME 
Clough and Byron 


43 


SEA 
Keats and Emerson 


23 


SOUL 

Shelley and Browning 


65 


SUPERSTITION 
Burns and Swinburne 


3i 



[ viii ] 



CONTENTS 

Page 
TRUTH 33 

Browning and Dryden 

WAR 15 

William Morris and Clough 

WILL 37 

Emerson and Tennyson 

WOMAN 9 

Shakespeare and Tennyson 



[«] 




T 



WHITTIER 

HE airs of heaven blow o'er me; 
A glory shines before me, — 



A dream of man and woman 
Diviner but still human, 

The love of God and neighbor; 
An equal-handed labor; 

I feel the earth move sunward, 
I join the great march onward, 
And take by faith, while living, 
My freehold of thanksgiving. 



MY TRIUMPH. 



LOWELL 

So charmed, with undeluded eye we see 
In history's fragmentary tale 
Bright clues of continuity, 



[*] 



POETS' PARLEYS 



Learn that high natures over Time prevail, 

And feel ourselves a link in that entail 

That binds all ages past with all that are to be. 

UNDER THE OLD ELM. 

WHITTIER 
On then, my brothers ! every blow 

Ye deal is felt the wide earth through ; 
Whatever here uplifts the low 
Or humbles Freedom's hateful foe, 

Blesses the Old World through the New. 

THE FREED ISLANDS. 
LOWELL 

For soul inherits all that soul could dare: 
Yea, manhood hath a wider span 
And larger privilege of life than man. 

COMMEMORATION ODE. 
WHITTIER 

O East and West ! O morn and sunset, twain 
No more forever! Has he lived in vain 
Who, priest of Freedom, made ye one, and told 
Your bridal service from his lips of gold? 

THOMAS STARR KING. 
[a] 



A DREAM OF FREEDOM 



LOWELL 

The single deed, the private sacrifice, 

Is covered up ere long - from mortal eyes 
With thoughtless drift of the deciduous years; 
But that high privilege that makes all men peers, — 
That leap of heart whereby a people rise — 

That swift validity in noble veins — 

Of choosing danger and disdaining shame, — 

These are imperishable gains, 

These hold great futures in their lusty reins 

And certify to earth a new imperial race. 

COMMEMORATION ODE. 




[3] 




BROWNING 

WHEN all mankind alike is perfected, 
Equal in full-blown powers — then, not till then, 
I say, begins man's general infancy. 

PARACELSUS. V. 749. 
SHAKESPEARE 

How could communities, 
Degrees in schools and brotherhoods in cities, 

The primogenitive and due of birth, 
Prerogative of age, crowns, sceptres, laurels, 
But by degree, stand in authentic place? 
Take but degree away, untune that string, 
And, hark, what discord follows ! 

TROILUS AND CRESSIDA. I. iii. 103. 
BROWNING 

But little do or can the best of us: 

That little is achieved through Liberty. 
Who, then, dares hold, emancipated thus, 

[s] 



POETS' PARLEYS 



His fellow shall continue bound? Not I, 
Who live, love, labor freely, nor discuss 
A brother's right to freedom. 

WHY I AM A LIBERAL. 
SHAKESPEARE 
Where gentry, title, wisdom, 
Cannot conclude but by the yea and no 
Of general ignorance, — it must omit 
Real necessities, and give way the while 
To unstable slightness : purpose so barr'd, it follows, 
Nothing is done to purpose. 

CORIOLANUS. III. i. 144. 
BROWNING 

Whom do you count the worst man upon earth? 

Be sure, he knows, in his conscience, more 
Of what right is, than arrives at birth 

In the best man's acts that we bow before. 

CHRISTMAS EVE. 1034. 
SHAKESPEARE 

Degree being vizarded, 
The unworthiest shows as fairly in the mask. 

TROILUS AND CRESSIDA. I. iii. 83. 



[6] 




LANIER 

NOW fall the chill reactionary snows 
Of man's defect, and every wind that blows 
Keeps back the Spring of Freedom's rose. 

PSALM OF THE WEST. 
WHITMAN 

Be not dishearten'd, affection shall solve the problems of 

freedom yet ; 
Those who love each other shall become invincible, 
They shall yet make Columbia victorious. 

OVER THE CARNAGE. 
LANIER 

How if this contrarious West 
That me by turns hath starved, by turns hath fed, 
Embraced, disgraced, beat back, solicited, 
Have no fixed heart of Law within his breast ? 

PSALM OF THE WEST. 



[7] 



POETS' PARLEYS 



WHITMAN 

I see Freedom, completely arm'd and victorious, and very 

haughty, with Law on one side and Peace on the other, 

A stupendous trio all issuing forth against the idea of Caste. 

YEARS OF THE MODERN. 

LANIER 

And the Time in that ultimate Prime shall forget old regret- 
ting and scorn, 

Yea, the stream of the light shall give off in a shimmer the 
dream of the night forlorn. 

PSALM OF THE WEST. 
WHITMAN 

— Then turn, and be not alarm'd . . . 

To where the future, greater than all the past, 

Is swiftly, surely, preparing for you. 



TURN O LIBERTAD. 




[8] 



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ON WOMAN 

SHAKESPEARE 
IS beauty that doth oft make women proud; 



'T is virtue that doth make them most admired ; 
'T is government that makes them seem divine. 

3 HENRY VI. I. iv. 128. 

TENNYSON 

Woman is the lesser man, and all her passions matched 

with mine 
Are as moonlight unto sunlight, and as water unto wine. 

LOCKSLEY HALL. 
SHAKESPEARE 
. . . Yourself 
But, as it were, in sort or limitation, 
To keep with you at meals, comfort your bed, 
And talk to you sometimes? Dwell . . . but in the suburbs 
Of your good pleasure? 



JULIUS C^SAR. II. i. 283. 



[9] 



POETS' PARLEYS 



TENNYSON 

Some said their heads were less. 

THE PRINCESS. 
SHAKESPEARE 

Let husbands know 
Their wives have sense like them : they see and smell 
And have their palates both for sweet and sour, 
As husbands have. 

OTHELLO. IV. iii. 94. 

TENNYSON 
Yet in the long years liker must they grow, 
The man be more of woman, she of man, 



Till at the last she set herself to man 
Like perfect music unto noble words. 



THE PRINCESS. 




[ 10] 




SHAKESPEARE 

THAT love is merchandized whose rich esteeming 
The owner's tongue doth publish everywhere. 

SONNET GIL 
BROWNING 

Love is whole 
And true ; if sure of naught beside, most sure 
Of its own truth at least; nor may endure 
A crowd to see its face, that cannot know 
How hot the pulses throb its heart below. 

SORDELLO. I. 730. 
SHAKESPEARE 

Love is too young to know what conscience is ; 
Yet who knows not conscience is born of love? 

SONNET CLI. 

Love is a babe ; then might I not say so, 

To give full growth to that which still doth grow? 

sonnet cxv. 



[»] 



POETS' PARLEYS 



BROWNING 

How else should love's perfected noontide follow? 
All the dawn promised shall the day perform. 

A BLOT IN THE 'SCUTCHEON. I. iii. 226. 
SHAKESPEARE 

Love 's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks 
Within his bending" sickle's compass come; 
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, 
But bears it out even to the edge of doom. 

SONNET CXV1. 

BROWNING 

The soul 
Whence the love comes, all ravage leaves that whole ; 
Vainly the flesh fades; soul makes all things new. 

ANY WIFE TO ANY HUSBAND. 




[ " ] 




LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON 

LOVE is a fire, 
^ Beware the madness of that wild desire! 
I know for I was young and now am old. 

GRANDMAMMA'S WARNING. 

SWINBURNE 

Now all good that comes or goes is 
As the smell of last year's roses 
As the radiance in our eyes 
Shot from Summer's ere he dies. 

PASTICHE. 
LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON 

If love could last, I 'd spend my all 
And think the price was yet too small, 
To buy his light upon my way, 
His sun to turn my night to day, 
His cheer whatever might befall. 

FRENCH TUNES. 



[13] 



POETS' PARLEYS 



SWINBURNE 

But his wings will not rest and his feet will not stay for us : 

Morning is here in the joy of its might ; 
With his breath has he sweetened a night and a day for us; 
Now let him pass, and the myrtles make way for us; 

Love can but last in us here at his height 
For a day and a night. 

AT PARTING. 
LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON 

When Love was young in days of yore, 
On bended knee full oft I swore, 

To him alone I 'd homage pay; 

I 'd love forever and a day, 
And love with every day the more. 

FRENCH TUNES. 
SWINBURNE 

For a day and a night Love sang to us, played with us, 

Folded us round from the dark and the light ; 
And our hearts were fulfilled of the music he made with us, 
Made with our hearts and our lips while he stayed with us, 
Stayed in mid passage his pinions from flight 
For a day and a night. 

AT PARTING. 
[14] 




WILLIAM MORRIS 

CANST thou in rhyme 
Tell stories of the ancient time? 
Or dost thou chronicle old wars? 

THE MAN BORN TO BE KING. 

CLOUGH 
Really, who knows? One has bowed and talked, till little by 

little 
All the natural heat has escaped of the chivalrous spirit. 



Should I incarnadine ever this inky pacifical finger? 

AMOURS DE VOYAGE. 
MORRIS 

Bitter war ! 
Wherein the right and wrong so mingled are, 
That hardly can the man of single heart 
Amid the sickening turmoil choose his part; 
For him suffice the changes of the year, 



POETS' PARLEYS 



The God-sent terror was enough of fear 
For him ; enough the battle with the earth. 

THE EARTHLY PARADISE. 

CLOUGH 
Dulce it is, and Decorum , no doubt, for the country to fall, — 

to 
Offer one's blood an oblation to Freedom, and die for the 
Cause; yet— amours de voyage. 

MORRIS 

—Yet, for him must idle soldiers range 
From place to place about the burdened land, 
Or thick upon the ruined corn fields stand? 

THE EARTHLY PARADISE. 
CLOUGH 

Alas ! 't is ephemeral folly, 
Vain and ephemeral folly, of course, compared with pictures, 
Statues, and antique gems!— Indeed,— . . . 

. . . And yet did I, waking, 
Dream of a cadence that sings, Si tombent nosjeunes heros, la 
Terre en produit de nouveaux contre vous tous pret a se 

battre ; 
Dream of great indignations and angers transcendental ! 

AMOURS DE VOYAGE. 
[ 16] 



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WORDSWORTH 

THERE was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, 
The earth, and every common sight, 
To me did seem 
Apparelled in celestial light, 
The glory and the freshness of a dream. 

INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY. 
BRYANT 

Has nature in her calm majestic march 
Faltered with age at last? Does the bright sun 
Grow dim in heaven? or, in their far blue arch, 
Sparkle the crowd of stars, when day is done, 
Less brightly? 



THE AGES. 



WORDSWORTH 
Waters on a starry night 
Are beautiful and fair; 
The sunshine is a glorious birth ; 

[17] 



POETS' PARLEYS 



But yet I know, where'er I go, 
That there hath past away a glory from the earth. 

INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY. 
BRYANT 

Look on this beautiful world and read the truth 
In her fair page ; see, every season brings 
New change, to her, of everlasting youth. 

THE AGES. 
WORDSWORTH 

I have learned 
To look on nature, not as in the hour 
Of thoughtless youth ; but hearing oftentimes 
The still sad music of humanity, 
Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power 
To chasten and subdue. 

TINTERN ABBEY. 
BRYANT 

Oh, no ! a thousand cheerful omens give 
Hope of yet happier days, whose dawn is nigh. 

... he whose eye 
Unwinds the eternal dances of the sky, 
And in the abyss of brightness dares to span 

[18] 



NATURE 



The sun's broad circle, rising - yet more high, 

In God's magnificent works his will shall scan — 

And love and peace shall make their paradise with man. 

THE AGES. 




[ »>] 




SPENSER 

STROWE me the ground with Daffadowndillies, 
And Cowslips, and Kingcups and loved Lillies. 

SHEPHEARD'S CALENDER. APRILL. 
SHAKESPEARE 

O Proserpina, 
For the flowers now, that frighted thou let'st fall 
From Dis's waggon! daffodils, 
That come before the swallow dares, and take 
The winds of March with beauty; violets dim, 
But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes 
Or Cytherea's breath. winter , s tale> ^ iv _ ^ 



SPENSER 

Whence is it, that the fiowret of the field doth fade, 
And lyeth buryed long in Winter's bale? 

SHEPHEARD'S CALENDER. NOVEMBER. 



POETS' PARLEYS 



SHAKESPEARE 

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, 
And summer's lease hath all too short a date. 

SONNET XVIII. 
SPENSER 

Yet, soone as Spring his mantle hath displayde, 
It flowreth fresh as it should never fayde. 

SHEPHEARD'S CALENDER. 
SHAKESPEARE 

When daffodils begin to peer, 



Why, then comes in the sweet o' the year; 
For the red blood reigns in the winter's pale. 

WINTER'S TALE. IV. iii. 



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[22] 




THE SEA 



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KEATS 

OH ye! who have your eye-balls vex'd and tir'd, 
Feast them upon the wideness of the Sea; 
Oh ye ! whose ears are dinn'd with uproar rude, 

Or fed too much with cloying melody, — 
Sit ye near some old cavern's mouth and brood 
Until ye start, as if the sea-nymphs quir'd! 

SONNET ON THE SEA. 
EMERSON 

Lie on the warm rock-ledges, and there learn 
A little hut suffices like a town. 
I make your sculptured architecture vain, 
Vain beside mine. I drive my wedges home, 
And carve the coastwise mountain into caves. 
Lo ! here is Rome and Nineveh and Thebes, 
Karnac and Pyramid and Giant's Stairs 
Half piled or prostrate; and my newest slab 
Older than all thy race. 



[23] 



POETS' PARLEYS 



Behold the Sea, 
The opaline, the plentiful and strong. 

SEA-SHORE. 
KEATS 

It keeps eternal whisperings around 
Desolate shores, and with its mighty swell 

Gluts twice ten thousand caverns, till the spell 
Of Hecate leaves them their old shadowy sound. 

SONNET ON THE SEA. 
EMERSON 

Illusion dwells forever with the wave. 
I know what spells are laid . . . 
I make some coast alluring, some lone isle, 
To distant men, who must go there, or die. 

SEA-SHORE. 
KEATS 

Come to pay devotion due, — 
Each a month of pearls must strew! 
Many a mortal of these days 
Dares to pass our sacred ways; 
Dares to touch audaciously, 
This cathedral of the sea ! 



[»4] 



THE SEA 



EMERSON 

Rich are the sea-gods: —who gives gifts but they? 
They grope the sea for pearls, but more than pearls: 
They pluck Force then, and give it to the wise. 

SEA-SHORE. 




[»5] 




V 



ROSSETTI 
APOROUS, unaccountable, 
Dreamland lies forlorn of light. 



LOVE'S NOCTURN. 



COLERIDGE 

And thence flows all that charms or ear or sight ; 

All melodies the echoes of that voice, 
All colors a suffusion from that light. 

ODE TO DEJECTION. 
ROSSETTI 

There the dreams are multitudes: 

Some whose buoyance waits not sleep, 
Deep within the August woods; 
Some that hum while rest may steep 
Weary labor laid a-heap ; 
Interludes, 
Some, of grievous moods that weep. 

LOVE'S NOCTURN. 



[«7] 



POETS' PARLEYS 



COLERIDGE 

Though my path was rough, 
This joy within me dallied with distress, 
And all misfortunes were but as the stuff 
Whence Fancy made me dreams of happiness. 

ODE TO DEJECTION. 
ROSSETTI 

Master, is it soothly said 
That, as echoes of man's speech 

Far in secret clefts are made, 
So do all men's bodies reach 

Shape or shade? 

LOVE'S NOCTURN. 
COLERIDGE 
Such it seems, 
... A fragment from the life of dreams ; 
But, say that years matur'd the silent strife 
And 't is a record from the dream of Life. 

PHANTOM OR FACT. 



[28] 




w 



SHAKESPEARE 

HILE you here do snoring lie, 



If of life you keep a care, 
Shake off slumber, and beware: 
Awake, Awake! 



THE TEMPEST. II. i. 300. 



HOOD 
Let Taylor preach upon a morning breezy 
How well to rise while nights and larks are flying, 
For my part getting up seems not so easy 
By half as lying. 



MORNING MEDITATIONS. 



SHAKESPEARE 

Hark, hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings, 

And Phoebus 'gins arise, 
His steeds to water at those springs 

On chaliced flowers that lies. 



CYMBELINE. II. iii. 2I . 



[=9] 



POETS' PARLEYS 



HOOD 

To me Dan Phcebus and his car are naught, 

His steeds that paw impatiently about, 
Let them enjoy, say I, as horses ought, 

The first turn-out. 

MORNING MEDITATIONS. 

SHAKESPEARE 
The grey-eyed morn smiles on the frowning night, 
Chequering the eastern clouds with streaks of light. 

ROMEO AND JULIET. II. iii. i. 
HOOD 

Why from a comfortable pillow start 

To see faint blushes in the east awaken? 
A fig, say I, for any streaky part, 

Excepting — bacon . 

MORNING MEDITATIONS. 



Sib. <^ 



[ 3°] 




BURNS 

SOUR Bigotry, on her last legs, 
Girnin' looked back. 

EPISTLE TO JOHN GOUDIE. 
SWINBURNE 

All the dark dead centuries rose to bar 
The spirit of man, lest truth should make him free. 

IN THE BAY. 

BURNS 
The reverend gray-beards raved and stormed 

That beardless laddies 
Should think they better were informed 

Than their old daddies. 



Frae less to mair, it gaed to sticks ; 
Frae words and aiths to clours and nicks, 
And mony a fallow gat his licks, 
Wi' hearty crunt; 



[31 ] 



POETS' PARLEYS 



And some, to learn them for their tricks, 
Were hanged and brunt. 



TO WM. SIMPSON. 



SWINBURNE 

Because the days were dark with gods and kings 
And in time's hand the old hours of time as rods, 
When force and fear set hope and faith at odds. 

IN THE BAY. 
BURNS 

Auld Orthodoxy lang did grapple, 
But now she's got an unco' ripple; 

And gasps for breath. 

Poor, gapin', glowerin' Superstition, 
Waes me ! She 's in a sad condition : 



Alas! There 's ground of great suspicion 
She '11 ne'er get better. 

TO JOHN GOUDIE. 
SWINBURNE 

Night's childless children; here your hour is done; 
Pass with the stars, and leave us with the sun ! 

TWO LEADERS. 
[32] 




BROWNING 

TRUTH is within ourselves ; it takes no rise 
From outward things, whate'er you may believe. 
There is an inmost centre in us all, 
Where truth abides in fulness. 

PARACELSUS. I. 7 z6. 
DRYDEN 

Thus man by his own strength to heaven would soar, 
And would not be obliged to God for more. 
Vain wretched creature, how art thou misled, 
To think thy wits these Godlike notions bred ! 
These truths are not the product of thy mind, 
But dropp'd from heaven, and of a nobler kind. 

RELIGIO LAICI. 

BROWNING 
Watch narrowly 
The demonstration of a truth, its birth, 
And you trace back the effluence to its spring 

[333 



POETS' PARLEYS 



And source within us ; where broods radiance vast, 
To be elicited ray by ray, as chance 
Shall favor. 

PARACELSUS. I. 737. 
DRYDEN 

Whence but from heaven could men unskill'd in arts, 
In several ages born, in several parts, 
Weave such agreeing truths? 

RELIGIO LAICI. 
BROWNING 

May not truth be lodged alike in all, 
The lowest as the highest? some slight film 
The interposing bar which binds a soul 
And makes the idiot, just as makes the sage 
Some film removed, the happy outlet whence 
Truth issues proudly? 

PARACELSUS. I. 7 S4- 
DRYDEN 

How comest thou to see these truths so clear, 
Which so obscure to heathens did appear? 
Nor Plato these nor Aristotle found : 
Nor he whose wisdom oracles renown'd. 
Hast thou a wit so deep, or so sublime, 

[34] 



THE SOURCE OF TRUTH 



Or canst thou lower dive or higher climb? 



In doubtful questions 't is the safest way 
To learn what unsuspected ancients say. 

RELIGIO LAICI. 




C3S] 




u 



EMERSON 

NLESS to Thought is added Will 
Apollo is an imbecile. 



TENNYSON 
All 
Life needs for life is possible to Will. 

EMERSON 

No fate save by the victim's fault is low, 
For God hath writ all dooms magnificent, 
So guilt not traverses his tender will. 



THE POET. 



LOVE AND DUTY. 



TENNYSON 
O, well for him whose will is strong! 
He suffers, but he will not suffer long; 
He suffers, but he cannot suffer wrong. 



WILL. 



[37] 



POETS' PARLEYS 



EMERSON 

Where his clear spirit leads him, there 's his road, 
By God's own light illumined and foreshowed ! 

WOODNOTES. 
TENNYSON 

He, that ever following her commands, 

On with toil of heart and knees and hands, 

Thro' the long gorge to the far light has won 

His path upward, and prevail'd, 

Shall find the toppling crags of Duty scaled 

Are close upon the shining table-lands 

To which our God Himself is moon and sun. 

ODE ON WELLINGTON. 




[ 38 




KEATS 

SPITE of despondence, of the inhuman dearth 
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days, 
Of all the unhealthy and o'erdarkened ways 
Made for our searching : yes, in spite of all, 
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall 
From our dark spirits. 



ENDYMION. 



BROWNING 

If you get simple beauty and naught else, 
You get about the best thing God invents. 



FRA LIPPO LIPPI. 217. 



KEATS 

Beauty is truth, truth beauty,— that is all 
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. 



ODE ON A GRECIAN URN. 



[39] 



POETS' PARLEYS 



BROWNING 

Indeed, to know is something, and to prove 
How all this beauty might be enjoyed, is more. 



cleon. « 9I . 



KEATS 

A thing of beauty is a joy forever: 
Its loveliness increases; it will never 
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep 
A bower quiet for us. 

BROWNING 

And all this joy in natural life is put 
Like fire from off thy finger into each, 
So exquisitely perfect is the same. 



ENDYMION. 



CLEON. 103. 




[40 ] 




SHAKESPEARE 

IF you have any music that may not be heard, to 't again. 
OTHELLO. III. i. 16. 

SHELLEY 

Music when soft voices die 
Vibrates in the memory. 

A FRAGMENT. 
SHAKESPEARE 

I have a reasonable good ear in music. Let's have the tongs 
and the bones. 

MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM. IV. i. 30. 
SHELLEY 

I pant for the music which is divine, 
My heart in its thirst is a dying flower, 
Pour forth the sound like enchanted wine, 
Loosen the notes in a silver shower. 

A FRAGMENT. 



[41] 



POETS' PARLEYS 



SHAKESPEARE 

Now, divine air ! now is his soul ravished ! Is it not strange 
that sheeps' guts should hale souls out of men's bodies? 

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. II. iii. 60. 
SHELLEY 

It . . . will not tell 
To those who cannot question well 
The spirit that inhabits it ; 
It talks according to the wit 
Of its companions; and no more 
Is heard than has been felt before. 

TO JANE WITH A GUITAR. 




[4»] 




CLOUGH 

ROME disappoints me much; I hardly as yet understand, 
but 
Rubbishy seems the word that most exactly would suit it. 
All the foolish destructions, and all the sillier savings, 
All the incongruous things of past incompatible ages, 
Seem to be treasured up here to make fools of present and 
future. 

AMOURS DE VOYAGE. 
BYRON 

The Goth, the Christian, time, war, flood, and fire 
Have dealt upon the seven-hill'd city's pride; 

She saw her glories star by star expire, 
And up the steep, barbarian monarchs ride ; 
Where the car climbed the Capitol far and wide, 

Temple and tower went down, nor left a site. 

CHILDE HAROLD. IV. lxxx. 



[43] 



POETS' PARLEYS 



CLOUGH 

Would to heaven the old Goths had made a cleaner sweep 
of it! 

Ye gods ! what do I want with this rubbish of ages de- 
parted, 

Things that Nature abhors, the experiments that she has 
failed in? 

AMOURS DE VOYAGE. 
BYRON 

Despise, laugh, weep, for here 
There is such matter for all feeling. . . . 
Ages and realms are crowded in this span. 



Yes ; and in yon field below, 
A thousand years of silenced factions sleep— 
The Forum, where the immortal accents glow 
And still the eloquent air breathes— burns with Cicero. 

CHILDE HAROLD. IV. cix-cxii. 
CLOUGH 

What do I find in the Forum? An archway and two or three 
pillars. 



[44] 



ROME 



No one can cavil, I grant, at the size of the great Coliseum. 
Doubtless the notion of grand and capacious and massive 

amusement, 
This the old Romans had; but, tell me, is this an idea? 

AMOURS DE VOYAGE. 
BYRON 

Arches on arches ! As it were that Rome, 
Collecting the chief trophies of her line, 
Would build up all her triumphs in one dome, 
Her Coliseum stands. . . . 
. . . And the azure gloom 

Of an Italian night, where the deep skies assume 
Hues which have words, and speak to eye of heaven, 
Floats o'er this vast and wondrous monument, 
And shadows forth its glory. 

CHILDE HAROLD. IV. cxxviii, cxxix. 




[45] 




MRS. BROWNING 

AT last, because the time was ripe, 
-£*> I chanced upon the poets ... 
. . . the only truth-tellers, now left to God. 

AURORA LEIGH. I. 8 44) 859. 
MR. BROWNING 
The one royal race 
That ever was, or will be, in this world ! 

BALAUSTION'S ADVENTURE. 2416. 



MRS. BROWNING 

Ay, and while your common men 
Lay telegraphs, gauge railroads, reign, reap, dine, 
And dust the fiaunty carpets of the world 
For kings to walk on, or the president, 
The poet suddenly will catch them up 
With his voice like a thunder. 



AURORA LEIGH. I. 869. 



[47] 



POETS' PARLEYS 



MR. BROWNING 

He with a "look you!" vents a brace of rhymes, 
And in there breaks the sudden rose herself, 

Buries us with a glory, young once more, 
Pouring heaven into this shut house of life. 

TRANSCENDENTALISM. 39. 
MRS. BROWNING 

The poet hath the child's sight in his breast, 
And sees all new . What oftenest he has viewed 
He views with the first glory. 

THE POET. 1. 

MR. BROWNING 
They give no gift that bounds itself and ends 
F the giving and the taking: theirs so breeds 
I' the heart and soul o' the taker, so transmutes 
The man who only was a man before, 
That he grows godlike in his turn, can give- 
He also: share the poet's privilege, 
Bring forth new good, new beauty, from the old. 

BALAUSTION'S ADVENTURE. 2419. 



[48] 




4^^^^^^^r^B^^>^^^^^^ s ^>^& 



SHAKESPEARE 

OUR poesy is as a gum, which oozes 
From whence 't is nourish'd : the fire i' the flint 
Shows not till it be struck ; our gentle flame 
Provokes itself and like the current flies 
Each bound it chafes. 

TIMON OF ATHENS. I. i. 21. 
KEATS 

. . . Poesy alone can tell her dream, 
With the fine spell of words alone can save 
Imagination from the sable chain 
And dumb enchantment. 

HYPERION, A VISION. 

SHAKESPEARE 
And as imagination bodies forth 
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen 
Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing 
A local habitation and a name. 

MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM. V. i. 14. 
[49] 



POETS* PARLEYS 



KEATS 

. . . The unimaginable lodge 
For solitary thinkings ; such as dodge 
Conception to the very bourne of heaven. 



ENDYMION. 



SHAKESPEARE 

. . . Shaping fantasies, that apprehend 
More than cool reason ever comprehends. 

MIDSUMMER NIGHTS DREAM. V. i. S . 
KEATS 

. . . The leaven 
That spreading in this dull and clodded earth 
Gives it a touch etherial — a new birth. 

ENDYMION. 




[So] 




EMMA LAZARUS 

I AM one who would not restore the Past, 
Beauty will immortal last, 
Though the beautiful must die — 
This the ages verify. 

GEORGE ELIOT 
I should ask 
Whence came taste, beauty, sensibilities 
Refined to preference infallible? 



AUGUST MOON. 



Is your beautiful 
A seedless, rootless flower, or has it grown 
With human growth, which means the rising sun 
Of human struggle, order, knowledge? 

A COLLEGE BREAKFAST PARTY. 



[5i ] 



POETS' PARLEYS 



EMMA LAZARUS 

Who seeks shall find 
Widening knowledge surely brings 
Vaster themes to him who sings. 



AUGUST MOON. 



GEORGE ELIOT 

Taste, beauty, what are they 
But the soul's choice toward perfect bias wrought 
By finer balance of a fuller growth — 
Sense brought to subtlest metamorphosis 
Through love, thought, joy— the general human store 
Which grows from all life's functions? 

A COLLEGE BREAKFAST PARTY. 
EMMA LAZARUS 

He shall be of bards the king, 
Who in worthy verse shall sing 
All the conquests of the hour, 
Stealing no fictitious power 
From the classic types outworn, 
But his rhythmic line adorn 
With the marvels of the real. 
He the baseless feud shall heal 

[5*] 



THE EVOLUTION OF POETIC ART 



That estrangeth wide apart 
Science from her sister Art. 

AUGUST MOON. 
GEORGE ELIOT 
Nay, ask 
The mightiest makers who have reigned, still reign 
Within the ideal realm. 

See if their thought 
Be drained of practice and the thick warm blood 
Of hearts that beat in action various 
Through the wide drama of the struggling world. 

A COLLEGE BREAKFAST PARTY. 




[S3] 




B 1 



WHITMAN 

EGINNING my studies, the first step pleas'd me so 
much, 
The mere fact, consciousness . . . 

. . . aw'd me and pleas'd me so much, 
I have hardly gone, and hardly wished to go, any farther, 
But stop and loiter all the time to sing it in ecstatic songs. 

INSCRIPTIONS. 
BURNS 

Critic folk may cock their nose, 
And say, "How can you e'er propose, 
You, wha ken hardly verse frae prose, 

To mak a sang?" 

TO J. LAPRAIK. 



WHITMAN 
Did you ask dulcet rhymes from me? 
Did you find what I sang erewhile so hard to follow, to un- 
derstand? 

[55] 



POETS' PARLEYS 



... Go lull yourself with what you can understand . . . 
For I lull nobody. 

DRUM TAPS. 
BURNS 

What's a' your jargon o' your schools, 
Your Latin names for horns and stools, 
If honest nature made you fools, 
What sairs your grammars? 



A set o' dull conceited hashes, 
Confuse their brains in college classes! 

And syne they think to climb Parnassus 
By dint o' Greek ! 

TO J. LAPRAIK. 
WHITMAN 

Shut not your doors to me, proud libraries, 
For that which was lacking on all your well-fill'd shelves, 
yet needed most, I bring. 

The words of my book nothing, the drift of it everything! 

INSCRIPTIONS. 



[56] 



MOTHER-WIT 



BURNS 

Give me ae spark o' Nature's fire! 
That 's a' the learning I desire. 



TO J. LAPRAIK. 




[57] 




MILTON 

HOW charming is divine philosophy! 
Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose; 
But musical as is Apollo's lute, 
And a perpetual feast of nectar'd sweets, 
Where no crude surfeit reigns. 

COMUS. 
SHAKESPEARE 

Then give me leave to read philosophy. 

TAMING OF THE SHREW. III. i. 13. 
MILTON 

Unsphere 
The spirit of Plato to unfold 
What worlds or what vast regions hold 
The mortal mind that hath forsook 
Her mansion in this fleshly nook. 

IL PENSEROSO. 



[59] 



POETS' PARLEYS 



SHAKESPEARE 

I am in all affected as yourself; 

Glad that you thus continue your resolve 

To suck the sweets of sweet philosophy. 

TAMING OF THE SHREW. I. L 26. 
MILTON 

Shall I call 
Antiquity from the old schools of Greece? 

COMUS. 
SHAKESPEARE 

Only, good master, while we do admire 
This virtue and this moral discipline, 
Let's be no stoics nor no stocks, I pray; 
Or so devote to Aristotle's checks 
As Ovid be an outcast quite abjured. 

TAMING OF THE SHREW. I. i. zg. 




[60] 




EMERSON 

ONWARD and on the eternal Pan, 
Who layeth the world's incessant plan, 
Halteth never in one shape, 
But forever doth escape, 
Like wave or flame, into new forms 
Of gem, and air, of plants, and worms. 



WOODNOTES. 



BROWNING 

And all lead up higher, 
All shape out dimly the superior race, 
The heir of hopes too fair to turn out false, 
And man appears at last. 

PARACELSUS. V. 707. 
EMERSON 

I tire of globes and races, 
Too long the game is played ; 



[61] 



POETS' PARLEYS 



What without him is summer's pomp, 
Or winter's frozen shade? 

SONG OF NATURE. 
BROWNING 

Progress is 
The law of life, man is not Man as yet. 
Nor shall I deem his object served, his end 
Attained, his genuine strength put fairly forth 
While only here and there a star dispels 
The darkness, here and there a towering mind 
O'erlooks its prostrate fellows : when the host 
Is out at once to the despair of night, 
When all mankind alike is perfected, 
Equal in full-blown powers — then, not till then, 
I say, begins man's general infancy. 

PARACELSUS. V. 741. 
EMERSON 

Let war and trade and creeds and song 
Blend, ripen race on race, 
The sunburnt world a man shall breed 
Of all the zones and countless days. 

SONG OF NATURE. 



[62] 



EVOLUTION 



BROWNING 

He shall start up and stand on his own earth, 
Then shall his long triumphant march begin, 
Thence shall his being date, —thus wholly roused, 
What he achieves shall be set down to him. 

PARACELSUS. V. 764. 




[63] 




SHELLEY 

AH ! to the stranger-soul when first it peeps 
-*** From its new tenement, and looks abroad 
For happiness and sympathy, how stern 
And desolate a tract is this wide world ! 



BROWNING 

The earth's first stuff 
Was, neither more nor less, enough 
To house man's soul, man's need fulfil. 



QUEEN MAB. IV. izi. 



EASTER-DAY. 843. 



SHELLEY 

Throughout this varied and eternal world 
Soul is the only element, the block 
That for uncounted ages has remained. 

QUEEN MAB. IV. 139. 
BROWNING 

Soul has its course 'neath Mind's work overhead,— 
Who tells of, tracks to source the founts of Soul? 

CHARLES AVISON. 181. 

[65] 



POETS' PARLEYS 



SHELLEY 

Man is of soul and body, formed for deeds 
Of high resolve ; on fancy's boldest wing 
To soar unwearied, fearlessly to turn 
The keenest pangs to peacefulness, and taste 
The joys which mingled sense and spirit yield. 

QUEEN MAB. IV. 154. 
BROWNING 

As the bird wings and sings, 
Let us cry "All good things 

Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more, now, than flesh helps 
soul!" 

RABBI BEN EZRA. 70. 




[ 66] 



L.ofC. 




TENNYSON 

WHAT the philosophies, all the sciences, poesy, vary- 
ing voices of prayer? 
All that is noblest, all that is basest, all that is filthy with 

all that is fair? 
What is it all, if we all of us end but in being our own corpse- 
coffins at last, 
Swallow'd in Vastness, lost in Silence, drown'd in the depths 
of a meaningless Past? 



VASTNESS. 



BROWNING 

You fear, you agonize, die: what then? 
Is an end to your life's work out of ken? 

Have you no assurance that, earth at end, 
Wrong will prove right? Who made shall mend 
In the higher sphere to which yearnings tend. 



REPHAN. 9 8. 



[67] 



POETS' PARLEYS 



TENNYSON 

Men have hopes, which race the restless blood, 
That after many changes may succeed 
Life, which is Life indeed. 

THE PROGRESS OF SPRING. 
BROWNING 

Whereof the effect be — faith 

That, some far day, were found 
Ripeness in things now rathe, 

Wrong righted, each chain unbound, 
Renewal born out of scathe. 

REVERIE. 176. 
TENNYSON 

Act first, this Earth, a stage so gloom'd with woe, 

You all but sicken at the shifting scenes. 
And yet, be patient. Our Playwright may show 

In some fifth Act what this wild Drama means. 

THE PLAY. 
BROWNING 

No, at noonday in the bustle of man's work-time 
Greet the unseen with a cheer! 



[68] 



IMMORTALITY 



Strive and thrive!" Cry " Speed, — fight on, fare ever 
There as here!" 

EPILOGUE TO ASOLANDO. 




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